


don't worry, it's just the end of the world as we know it

by Destructive



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, and dragons. dragons are also here, there's magic in this.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2018-12-24 05:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12006129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destructive/pseuds/Destructive
Summary: The first step is to kill the dragon. ("Dragons aren't real," Jason corrects her, "you're just going to have to fight bandits. It's going to be dangerous.")Second step is to rescue the princess. (Billy gives her a funny look, "What are you rescuing the princess from if you've already killed the dragon?" She shrugs and says something about rescuing her from climbing all of those stairs to get out of the tower again.)Third step is to be knighted. (Neither of them say anything at that. It's the ultimate goal, isn't it?)Fourth step? Profit.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s at times like these when Kimberly Hart realizes that she should have expected this to happen. After all, with her luck, she was always destined to get eaten by a dragon.

To think, just a moment ago she was so caught up with staring at the girl standing before her as she scrunched up her nose and offered the slightest smile, just enough to send up a flock of birds in Kimberly’s stomach. So distracted by how her own face lit up at the sight of the soft smile lines around the other girl’s eyes when she-

That’s how she ended up in this mess, holding a high pitched scream as long as she can manage. From this angle, she swears that she can feel the heat of a fire building up in the creature’s throat, but just as soon as she’s noticing that, her eyes dart back to the rows of sharp, white teeth that are threatening to close on her head.

Over the sound of her own yelling, she begins to weigh her options. Her sword is across the room, where it had been kicked to the side earlier. By the time her hand settled on the hilt of the dagger in her boot, her head would be browsing nearby shops for a replacement body. Any spells that Billy had tried to teach her were long gone now, forever lost in the back of her terrible memory. And just like that, it’s settled. She is so, royally screwed.

_Well, shit._

\----

“Doesn’t it all just seem kind of stereotypical?” Jason questions from where he’s leaning against the doorframe. His gaze follows Kimberly’s fevered movements, and he moves out of the door and further into the room, just in time to dodge a shirt that comes flying in his direction.

Kimberly gives him her best pout, the very same one that her dad insists could tear apart kingdoms. It must work, because at that, Jason raises his hands in defeat.

“I’m just saying, it sounds like it’s straight out of a fairytale, you know? I’m all for you going out there and taking opportunities, but there’s no way that this is going to end well,” Jason continues, shrugging as he approaches her. It’s just like him to be concerned about every move she makes, to be the acting voice of reason in their group, but there’s something that flashes in his eyes that tells Kimberly that this time is more serious than when she managed to convince Billy that they should both fill the captain’s boots with water and see what happened.

Kimberly rolls her eyes and stuffs another pair of pants into her bag. “You know dragons aren’t real, right, Jace? The worst thing that’s gonna be there is a bunch of ugly bandits in a costume of dyed leather. Or maybe a really adventurous wizard!” From where she’s sitting on her cot, she elbows Jason in the knee and gestures to the shirt that she threw at him when he entered. “Either way, it’ll be fine. I’ll even bring you back one of those new saddles that you were eyeing in the next town over.”

She can hear him sigh as he makes his way back to the door and reaches for her discarded shirt, “So you’re just going to bribe me into not being worried about you?”

“That’s the plan,” Kimberly offers him a grin as he begrudgingly hands over her shirt.

Jason raises an eyebrow at her, and she can almost hear him ranting about how _frustrating_ she is later on, when it’s just him and Billy. “I still don’t like the idea of you trying to take down a whole gang of bandits on your own,” he mutters, settling down next to her, close enough for their hips to touch.

“Isn’t that the point of all of this? We go rough up people who are roughing up everyone else and then we get knighted. It’s not worth much unless our big exam is hard.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it. People have _died_ during these tests, Kim.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not those people. It’s going to be fine, you big softie,” she smiles, giving him a light punch on the arm.

“And what if it’s not actually bandits? The description of the assignment was so vague, and you never know--”

“Jason. I’ll be fine.”

He sighs at her again, and Kim can almost hear him muttering something about how _of course she’s trying to rescue a princess from a tower guarded by a dragon, it’s_ just _like her to be that dramatic_ and then he’s standing up and looking down at her.

There’s something off about how he looks at her, on the verge of a blank expression. He’s close to hiding his feelings, but Kim has known him long enough to see what’s happening. The natural blue color of his eyes seems to dull, and as she gazes at him, Kimberly can’t help but think about how she fell for him when they first met. It was a short-lived romance, and she had come out of it a stronger person, with a new best friend to match. Being this close to him is a blessing, more often than not. But in this instant, knowing how to read how his lip twitches downwards on one side and how the spark in his eyes fades is anything but. He would never believe her, no matter how much she insisted, and she accepts that the moment he opens his mouth to speak.

“Just be careful, okay?” He’s not even looking at her as he says it, too busy standing and dusting off his pants. Kim tenses, and she can feel her fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in, ignoring the hollow feeling of guilt that is slowly creeping into her system. He’s about to say something more, something that will hurt her even if he doesn’t mean to, and she’ll curl back in on herself and never leave Angel Grove.

And then he’s out the door, and crossing the field back to the main buildings, and whatever sad thing he was going to say leaves with him.

Kimberly stays where she’s seated, watching as her door eases close and Jason disappears from sight.

She isn’t set to leave for another full day, and she’s tempted to find Jason again to remind him of that much, but now she’s more tense and nervous than before. _If he wants to start greying at 17, that’s his business._ The thought is full of spite, as if Jason wanting to live just a bit longer is something that’s holding him back. She can’t help it. This is what Kimberly was made to do, and he has no right trying to stop her.

At that thought, she tosses her packed bags to one side of her one-room cabin and makes her way outside. Immediately, the smell of horses hits her, and she can feel water soaking into her boots from the dewdrops that usually settle on the grass at this time of the morning. In the distance, the sun rises just above the horizon, highlighting the roofs of the surrounding cabins, each lined up and uniform, looking the same as the one next to it. The sound of the nearby town is drowned out by the rustling coming from the other trainees as they wake. If one were to listen closely, they’d likely hear the distinct _clang, clang_ of swords clashing at the practice range in the opposite direction of the town.

It’s around this time that Kimberly should be preparing for training as well, following a schedule ingrained into her for the last five years. Given that she has finally chosen a mission that will serve as her final exam, the captain gave her the four days before her departure off, as well as freedom to head into town and do as she wishes.

It’s not surprising that after five years of wanting more than just nights off, once she finally has free time during the day, she’s bored out of her mind. So used to being in a state of constant motion, standing still and looking at the world around her almost scares her. Times like these force her to examine her life and the 17 years’ worth of mistakes that she has made. Kimberly would say that she hates the dullness of it all if she were asked, taking care not to mention her regrets and how they weigh on her.

Shaking off the dark thoughts, Kimberly turns opposite her cabin and begins the slow walk into town, and away from her wandering mind.

It takes her nearly an hour to reach where the massive tower that hangs over the outskirts of the town, casting a long shadow that falls on the surrounding forest. The plant life in this area has gone virtually untouched, save a few patches here and there where someone from within the tower has gently plucked a flower from the ground or a leaf off of a tree. Kimberly can’t help but marvel at the beauty of it all, with the bright greens and solid purples and deep reds that decorate the ground and crawl up the stones of the tower. Even with all of the time she spends around the massive structure, she will never be tired of it, something that she mentions to Billy often enough that he only gives one-word responses when she brings it up.

She doesn’t bother to knock on the wooden door before her, instead barging carelessly inside. Kimberly makes quick work of ascending the spiraling staircase that she finds just beyond the entrance, occasionally passing an open door where she can hear the inhabitants doing _something_ dangerous (she’s almost certain she hears an inhuman scream from inside one of the rooms, but it’s shushed immediately, and at that point she’s too scared to look inside). A few minutes pass before she manages to find the door that has been painted a deep blue, and she taps out a short rhythm onto the wood.

A minute ticks on by, and Kimberly fidgets with the hem of her shirt while she waits. When a second minute has gone, she furrows her brow. _Weird..._

She knocks again, repeating the same sequence as before, this time, immediately pressing her ear to the door. She casts a sidelong glance at the sound of footsteps approaching on the stairs, and the young woman wearing a set of green robes and climbing the steps gives her an odd look in return. Kimberly stays to one side, allowing the woman to pass. It’s unusual for the apprentice to leave her waiting, and she’s never stayed outside of the room long enough to meet any of the other people living within the tower, and she never felt the need to do door-to-door introductions. After all, none of them could be as cool as the boy that she’d come to meet.

There’s still no sound from inside, and she’s growing more and more worried by the second. It’s tempting to say that you could only get up to so much when alone in a small, stone room with nothing but a few books, but that thought alone is _greatly_ underestimating Billy’s abilities. Kimberly once watched him turn a bucket of water into an explosion, and that was without even touching it. Or casting a spell. Or even being near it, actually. She still isn’t certain how he did it, but it’s needless to say that she stayed away from water for the week following the incident.

At that, she places a hand on the doorknob and twists, easing the door open slowly.

One of the last things that she expects to find is Billy, laying on the ground while completely covered in a light green powder, but that’s exactly what she walks in on. There’s a tense second as she stares down at him, her muscles coiled as she readies herself for the run to the nearest healer, but then he’s coughing and sending up a cloud of green around the room.

Kimberly scrunches up her nose and takes a step away from the powder that he has angered, and oh, now he’s sneezing and it’s just getting so much worse. It’s in that same second that he notices she’s standing in his doorway, and he pauses his journey into the land of standing up so that he can offer her a grin.

“Kimberly! Hey!” His smile is contagious, and despite the fact that his entire face is a bright green, she finds herself smiling right back at him. Confusion will always take a back seat to just enjoying Billy’s presence.

“Hey, Billy. Mind telling me what’s happening here?”

He’s standing now and nodding at her question, even as he makes his way over to his desk, which is now completely and utterly lost in the sea of brightly colored dust. Whatever he had been working on, it was either lost forever, or it just received a very unwanted makeover. Hopefully he used black ink to write his notes, and not green.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. I was working on something new. See, I thought it would be neat if I could turn dirt into an emerald, and, well, it didn’t really work out like it was supposed to, but that doesn’t mean that this can’t have other uses. If you can ignore the force that comes with it, which may have knocked me out for a little while, I think that there’s really something here! But it might be a little bit deadly if you breathe it in, but that’s not a big deal. Just a minor side effect.”

Kim wanders into the room slowly as he rambles, deciding that the green powder didn’t clash too badly with the muted brown colors that she was wearing. She settles herself onto a seat at the back of the room, not bothering to wipe off the color before sitting. A green butt isn’t that terrible. It’s definitely eye-catching. She’s busy thinking about how wait, maybe she shouldn’t be sitting in the green, even if it isn’t that ugly, as Billy mentions that it might just be deadly.

She stares at him, wide-eyed and with her mouth forming an ‘o’. It _would_ be just her luck to get a bad case of dying right before a big test, wouldn’t it?


	2. Chapter 2

At a certain time of the day, the sun would shine through the window _just_ right and create a range of beautiful colors. It was stunning to look at, bright and glittering in a way that would make her imagination run wild, full of magic and happy endings. This very specific time just so happened to land during early morning, and as the sun would rise over the massive trees that surrounded the castle, so would the sun rise over her daydreams and her hope for better times. And when the light came through the window and cast a collection of blues and reds, the emotions of the castle would swell into a peaceful calm, as if the ghostly servants and guests had all stopped to watch the dancing lights act out the story of a perfect world.

The lights were pretty. Really, they were. They were nice to look at. That’s what Trini told herself as they landed on her face, as they did every morning that she wished to sleep in, blinding her temporarily as she woke from her deep slumber to the bright heat of the multicolored lights in her eyes. They served as a wakeup call in more ways than one, shocking her out of her sleep and reminding her that here, in this place, no servants would waltz in and tell her of the wondrous things they had seen in their dreams. That she was all alone.. Or at least… mostly alone.

This was how mornings started, with a face full of bright light and a groan, and a loud _thump_ as Trini fell out her makeshift bed. The sound of her landing echoed through the otherwise empty hallway that stretched out on either side of her, sprinkled with doors and windows. She paused, sitting in silent expectation, hoping that maybe someone had come to visit in the night and that maybe, they would laugh at her and she wouldn’t feel so lonely. But the laughter never came, and she gave in to smiling at herself. Audience or not, someone was going to get a laugh out of her fall, and if that person happened to be herself, so be it.

She imagines for a moment that she would be happier if she wasn’t alone - mostly alone. Well... maybe being completely alone would have been better. It wouldn’t, of course, but Trini couldn’t help but tease her companion, even when they weren’t around to hear it.

As if called by her thoughts, a rustling sounds from the door that sat next to her cot and she hurries to stand up. _Speak of the devil._

\----

As it turns out, dying isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It’s quite funny, really. Kimberly knew, in the back of her mind, that Billy wouldn’t let her go near something that, as he claims, has a 60% chance of killing you within seconds of contact. So when he suddenly bursts out laughing, the only thing she can think to do is laugh in return.

After a moment, his laughter turns into a softer chuckle and he looks at her with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Don’t worry. I made sure to account for the natural toxicity of emeralds before writing up the spell, and, see, I neutralized it very carefully, and it took a while to work it out, but there’s definitely no way it’s poisonous now,” he adds quickly, “unless it is. But it’s definitely not.”

He stands up straight once his chuckling fades, and he offers her a grin. Kimberly returns it in full force, her shoulders still shaking from her own laughter.

“You almost gave me a heart attack, Billy! If the powder didn’t kill me, that would have,” she says past her smile.

For a moment, Billy hesitates and his face falls, a mask of concern taking over. Kimberly raises a brow immediately, her good-natured grin quickly becoming what she hopes is a reassuring smirk. It seems Billy gets the idea that no, he wasn’t actually going to kill her with a heart attack, and his nose crinkles the way it always does when he’s relieved, but it looks a bit silly with the green plastered to his face.

Kimberly had met Billy through Jason, one night when she and the blue-eyed boy were bored and sore from practice, and he had decided that dragging her out of her cabin and to the tower was worth working her aching bones. He introduced Billy as a friend, but never touched on how exactly they had met, and Kimberly never thought to ask, especially when the magician’s apprentice was busy casting a healing spell to ease her soreness. For the first few weeks following their meeting, she and Jason would journey out to the tower together and the three of them would end up huddled together in Billy’s room, laughing about magical mishaps or how Jason had fallen during sword training.

The trio became close knit in a way that Kimberly hadn’t been with anyone else before. It was a binding friendship, the kind that worked its way into her blood and became as much of a part of her as her hands or her head. Even before it reached this point, when she’d do anything for the two of them, she had begun to visit Billy on her own. When Jason wasn’t with them, she and the magician’s apprentice would try out impulsive experiments that Jason would never approve of, or go out and tend to the surrounding forest. Being with Billy sometimes seemed more natural than being with Jason, who she clashed with despite being so close to. But there were no hard feelings, because Kimberly knew that no matter what, the three of them would be together for the rest of time. Nothing could ever come in the way of that, and certainly no princess in a tower.

Now, with less than a day left before she set out on her journey, she found herself reflecting on how attached she was to both Billy and Jason. Billy, who sat before her smiling from ear to ear even when every inch of his skin was covered in a light green dust. Jason, who left her feeling empty and hurt when he tried his damndest to keep her from going out and becoming more than what she is; from what she’s meant to be.

She’s brought back to reality when she notices that Billy is talking to her, waving something around in his hand that wasn’t there a second ago.

“- thinking that it would be helpful if you ran into some trouble.”

She nods quickly, before cutting in. “Uh, Billy? I kind of zoned out. Mind repeating all of that?”

He looks hurt for a second but his face quickly brightens again, clearly eager to delve back into the topic. “So I’ve been working on this for a few days,” he says, gesturing to the object in his hands, which seems to be a simple pink stone. “Since Jason told me you’d picked your mission, actually. Alpha showed it to me a few years ago now, I think. There were a bunch of different colors but I thought you’d like pink the best, so I picked that one out for you. And I thought that maybe this would be helpful if you ever got into some trouble and you didn’t know what to do.”

Kimberly eyes the stone with caution for a moment before looking at Billy again. “What does it do, exactly?”

He uses his free hand to scratch the back of his neck and sends more dust floating into the air. “I’m not too sure, actually. Alpha said that it could do a lot of things, but then he wouldn’t say anymore, so I figured I’d try out some different spells on it and see how it goes. All I know right now is that it gets really warm kind of randomly, and sometimes it vibrates which might be useful for something, but I don’t know what. And that it can do this,” he continues, placing the stone on the desk next to him and taking a step back.

He mutters a quick spell, and Kimberly’s leaping out of her chair because now there’s _lightning_ flying from Billy’s fingertips and the powder that has settled on the ground is flying up again, irritated by the sudden burst of magic. Luckily, the cloud of green that’s easing off the ground is still too thin to obscure her view of Billy and the stone, and what she witnesses makes her jaw drop.

Magic is an amazing thing. This is what she thinks as she watches the stone, now floating midair and projecting a glowing pink bubble around itself, deflecting the lightning before the magic can touch it. The dust on the desk is now everywhere but, giving a clear view of the wood that is being charred in spots where the lightning flies off of the bubble and hits the desk.

Then it’s over, ending as suddenly as it began, and Kimberly watches as the stone lands back on the desk with a _clunk_. It’s then that she realizes her ears are ringing and that she’s having difficulty hearing Billy when he talks to her, so she opts for turning to him with a look of confusion instead. He’s grinning at her, his chest puffed out more than usual and she can get a good look at his face, now absent of any green.

Kimberly’s hearing returns to normal faster than she thought it would, given what she just witnessed. Billy seems to notice this, repeating what he said for her sake.

“Cool, right?”

“If by cool you mean absolutely awesome,” she mumbles past her amazement, turning her gaze back to the stone. The pink seems to be brighter than before, and she could swear that there’s a soft glow coming off of it. Terrifying or not, that is amazing.

She spends the next few hours sitting with Billy and discussing what the stone is, questioning where it came from, and the two are seconds from knocking on Alpha’s door before thinking better of it. The older magician was likely busy, if he was in his room at the top of the tower at all. By the time Kimberly stands up and dusts the last bit of green powder off of herself, the sun is setting outside of the window on the far side of Billy’s room.

She carefully places the pink rock in her pocket, wary of what else it could possibly do. When she turns to Billy again, he’s already pulling her into an awkward, nervous hug. She knows exactly what touching means to him, just as he knows that this will be the last time he talks to her before she sets out on her final task. She gives him full control of the hug, and he pulls away quickly after embracing her.

The only thing she can manage in return is a tight, fast nod as she blinks away tears. The better part of her thoughts stomped on any doubts about her journey, insisting that now was no time to be getting emotional. After all, she would be back soon, healthy as could be.

At that thought, she heads out of Billy’s room and out of the tower.

\----

The next day, Kimberly wakes up face down on her bed, where she had fallen into, half asleep the night before. Where she would normally be sore from practice, her muscles are tensed with the excitement built over the last few days of rest. _Today’s the day._

Her destiny is waiting, and now is certainly not the time to be sleeping in.

If only her parents could see her now, getting up an hour before dawn instead of on the brink of noon. They’d be proud of her, and of what she had become. Once this mission was complete, she would have time to visit them and tell them of the adventures she had and how waking up this early wasn’t actually fun like they had said it would be. But first thing’s first.

It takes a moment of blinking at the pillow before her until she fully wakes up, and the energy in her body coils like a spring. Another moment passes, up she’s up like a lightning bolt, moving through her room in a flurry of motion. Bags are quickly grabbed and tied together, blades snatched and stuffed into holsters on her hip, in her boot, and on the side of a pack.

Every second that passes is agony, and she wills herself to move around the cabin faster, if it would just mean that she could head out sooner. It helps that she packed beforehand, and Kimberly silently thanks her past self for being so considerate.

Soon enough, she’s dressed in her nicest traveling clothes: a dark grey vest embroidered with a swirling pink pattern, a simple white shirt underneath, comfortable pants, and worn but sturdy boots. She looks herself up and down, deciding that this is exactly how she wants the other trainees to remember her while she’s gone. Let it be said that Kimberly Hart was never one to be caught giving a bad impression, even on the day of a long journey.

She shrugs on her bag, taking care not to jostle the other items tied to the various straps on it. Her gaze drifts around her cabin, her home for the last few years. It feels empty now. Lonely. Without the pile of discarded clothes and the makeshift fort of blankets that decorated the floor, everything seems just a bit out of place. Even the mix of gifts from her friends and family that still sat on the small table in the corner looks _off_ , but she can’t afford to take everything with her. So taking one last look at the room will have to do.

The first step out of the door is filled with such emotional force that she considers stepping back inside, just for a moment, to catch her breath. But the feeling fades just as soon as it came, and the next thing Kimberly knows is that she’s taking the second, the third, the fourth steps of her journey, one right after the other.

Her first stop is the training grounds, where she spots Jason hacking away at a lifesized hay training dummy with his sword. There are other knights in training there as well, each squaring off with their own lifeless companions, dutifully whacking their swords against the different joints of the hay people.

She doesn’t head for Jason, instead waving to catch the eye of an older man on the opposite end of the grounds, where he stands with his arms crossed and his gaze focused on the armed trainees. It takes a second for him to notice her, but once he does, he cracks a smile, the wrinkles on his face pulling and making him look more worn out that usual. Zordon doesn’t make a move to cross the field as Kimberly would have expected. Instead, he gives her a small which she quickly returns.

This was his way of dismissal, she assumes, before about-facing and heading away from the sound of metal hitting hay. His approval means the world to her, and as the only one who hasn’t offered her some kind of assistance or word of advice before she leaves, Kimberly knows that Zordon truly believes in her capabilities.

A warm feeling stirs in her heart as she walks and she picks up her pace as she nears the forest. There are conflicting emotions in her, worry slamming into determination and love for her friends clashing with her love for adventure. Despite this, she pushes forward, into the forest and towards the distant castle where she has been told a dragon waits for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! back at it again... sorry for the delay! i'm going to try to get on a regular writing schedule soon, which should mean some longer chapters and more consistent updates. expect trini and kimberly to meet next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> hi i dont really write a lot so that may have been a lot more painful to read than i thought. but thanks for reading!


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